Using this space as a bit of a confessional couch, I must admit that the third Australian series of Big Brother has grown on me. Initially, I found the ratings-building devices like dividing the victims into two houses rather contrived and annoying. The recent division of the remaining six housemates into �haves� and �have-nots� once again seemed to be the most cruel trick thus far, but today something happened which pushed my sympathy over the edge. Today�s news on the Big Brother website begins thus:

Chrissie has been dreaming of real coffee for weeks - the smell, the taste, the sound of the machine frothing milk - she's a connoisseur. Vincenzo is also a coffee fanatic - it's in his blood, and Patrick gets physically ill from withdrawals. What could be worse for the three Have-nots than being able to look, smell and touch but not taste?

Being a coffee addict myself, I felt empathy for the housemates for the first time. Poor bastards! This whole haves/have-nots reminds me of an educational documentary called The Wave in which students were divided according to an arbitrary trait (eye colour, I think) and inadvertently started acting like fascists. Will there be a blood-in-the-streets revolution inside the Queensland house-cum-prison? Perhaps not. Am I finally being seduced by the rating giant Big Brother: yes, yes I am. Hmmm.

Big Brother Three: Online Overdose!

In related �news�, I was amazed at how many fan websites there are related to the Big Brother phenomenon. Apart from the advertising laden official Big Brother website, there is the very slick and professional-looking Behind Big Brother which looks very similar to the official site, but a lot more interesting. Amusing and fun is the Big Brother Tipping site where you can get the odds on whose leaving this week. There are numerous housemate-specific site, but the most vigorous and maintained is the Go Regina! site dedicated to Australia�s most famous fish�n�chip shop worker since Pauline �I don�t like it� Hanson. For more links, see Behind Big Brother�s links page. That should keep all you BB3 fans happy for a while!

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After almost four years of constant blogging, the last post to Ponderance (this blog) was made on March 11, 2007. These archives will remain live indefinitely (or until Google starts deleting inactive blogs), but please update your links and come and visit my new blog at Tama Leaver dot Net.

Tama Leaver

I teach in the Department on Internet Studies at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. I blog, I teach, I research, I tweet, and a few other things, too ...

Everything you want to know about me (and that I want to share) can be found at tamaleaver.net.